September 7, 2012

And George Bush is! What can explain this? Either the world has turned upside down, or it's all about Bill Clinton, who is #1. Or... is it just that Obama is not "in history," because we can't yet say — or would you? — he's history?

43 comments:

They left out the coolest president of all - George Washington. I noticed they mentioned in him in a back handed way in the Jefferson paragraph, but he was cooler than Jefferson. I've read that he had an easy comaraderie and the women swooned over him. Also, he declined the offer an imperial type presidency. I would choose him over Jefferson.

Clinton likes being liked and being the center of attention, but once you cross the threshold of the former, he relaxes. Obama never does; it never ceases to be about him. He's the type of guy who insists that you listen to his stories and then tunes out when you tell your own.

Another way to put it; if various presidents were neighbors and a tree was knocked down in a storm, Reagan and Bush would be there the next morning with a chain saw. I could see Clinton joining in once the work got started. Obama would be the guy peaking out the window, complaining to his wife about the noise.

" Obama would be the guy peaking out the window, complaining to his wife about the noise." No, he would come out to help, but he would want to be in charge, and he would take a lot of breaks. He would also spend a lot of time blaming someone else for it taking so long. Also for the tree falling down in the first place.

If "cool" means you'd like to spend some informal time with him, kick back, shoot the breeze, then I'd take FDR and JFK off the list (unless I were Marilyn Monroe, in which case I'd keep JFK on the list). I would certainly include Lincoln, the great story teller -- God! Wouldn't you like to just sit there and listen to Abe and The Gipper swap stories?

The 'cool' business is just a dodge. The list was compiled the same way US News & WR does its best law and grad school thing -- heavy weighting of SAT or LSAT scores. So, of course Ronnie and W got on the list, while JFK had Sorensen take the tests for him so he could make the cut. And poor O got left on the cutting room floor. Naturally.

Harding died while Coolidge was at his family home, which had neither electricity nor phone. A delegation went out to tell him the news in the middle of the night. He got dressed, said a prayer, said hello to the reporters who had driven up the house, and had his dad (a notary public) administer the oath of office.

George Wahington suffers from the earler hype that now makes him look like a square. He led troops in battle, pushed for our constitution, served as first president and then WENT HOME. How cool is that? "Mr. Washingtom, we'd like to make you King." "Sorry. F you. I am going back to Mt Vernon. Eight years and out. I'm done."

Everyone who was so disappointed in George, decided to blame George - still blames George - thinks they had to choose Obama to get rid of George's influence, or feels superior to George based on the simple fact they're not George, you're wrong.

George said he'd let history judge, and this discovery that he's cool - by NPR! - is just the latest evidence that his vision of the world was correct, that time is probably the only medicine for delusion, and those who've suffered BDS should have been acknowledged as such to begin with. It's not like George, or the correct perception of him, was going to change for them - they have to come to terms with reality:

George W. Bush is cool, and they're not, and that's all there is to it.

Uncool is easier to define than cool. Uncool is Nixon walking on the shore in his suit and wingtips. Uncool is LBJ flashing his abdominal scars....Poor Millard Fillmore. How can anyone wih a name like that aspire to anything but mediocrity. And yet he did succeed in becoming President.....Besides definitely sleeping with Marilyn Monroe and Gene Tierney, JFK was rumored to have had affairs with Audrey Hepburn, Angie Dickinson, and Sophia Loren. Clinton got Monica and that lounge singer. JFK had that whole war hero thing working for him. Clinton was more a band geek than a Miles Davis. I don't know who the coolest President was but JFK must surely rank far higher than Clinton.

Obama is not on the coolest list because there is an election coming up and his name is on one of the levers.

NPR is already under a cloud for being a liberal mouthpiece -- in general and specifically for the scandals in which Juan Williams was fired and an NPR executive was recorded calling Tea Partiers, "seriously, seriously racist people."

Maybe NPR can see the handwriting on the wall of a Republican sweep in November which would put their funding in jeopardy. Most conservatives would welcome that development. I know I would.

“I hope you aren’t in a hurry,” Dietrich quoted Kennedy as saying when the German actress arrived after accepting an invitation for drinks at the White House, according to The New Yorker.

Dietrich, according to Tynan’s journal entry from April 4, 1971, replied that, in fact, she was in a hurry, as “2,000 Jews were waiting to give her a plaque at 7 p.m., and it was now 6:30.”

“That doesn’t give us much time, does it?” Kennedy said, to which Dietrich replied, “No, Jack, I guess it doesn’t.”

“It was all over sweetly and very soon,” Tynan recounted, quoting Dietrich as telling him, “And then he went to sleep. I looked at my watch and it was 6:50.”

Dietrich said she shook Kennedy awake “because I didn’t know my way around the place, and I couldn’t just call for a cab.” With that the president, clad only in a towel, led the glamorous actress to an elevator, telling the elevator operator to get her a car to the hotel for her scheduled appearance.

As she departed, Dietrich said Kennedy asked her “just one thing. … Did you ever make it with my father?”

Joseph P. Kennedy was friends with Dietrich during the 1930s and had a well-documented affair with another Hollywood siren, Gloria Swanson.

“‘No Jack,’ I answered truthfully, ‘I never did,’” Dietrich said, according to The New Yorker.

“‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s one place I’m in first.’ Then the lift door closed and I never saw him again.”